Humanform Letterform

Written, drawn, incised, digitized — letters are made by and for the human body. This presentation will examine the many ways in which letterforms and bodies interact. These include how we use our hands, eyes, and minds to create letterforms by inscribing them in stone, drawing them, writing them with brushes and pens, engraving them in metal, and digitizing them on the screens of computers . We will trace the origins of seven of our twenty-six letters that began as images of our bodies, and we will also look at letters on bodies, letters made of bodies, and bodies made of letters.

The Herb Lubalin Lectures are filmed and made available here and on Vimeo with the generous support of Hoefler&Co.

Lecturer:
Sumner Stone

Sumner Stone is a type designer, type founder, author, and teacher. From 1984–1989 he was Director of Typography for Adobe Systems where he conceived and implemented Adobe’s typographic program including the Adobe Originals. In 1990 he founded Stone Type Foundry Inc., now located in Rumsey, California. The Foundry designs and produces new typefaces and creates custom designs for a diverse range of clients including Hallmark Cards, Stanford University, The San Francisco Public Library, Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, The Greenwood Press, Arion Press, and Full Belly Farm. His type designs include the popular ITC Stone Sans and the prize-winning ITC Bodoni. His most recent type designs are Davanti, Sator, and Popvlvs.